Speculation about Elite Feet / Space Legs

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Here’s an interesting question for Elite Feet (or Space Legs if you prefer), I was going to discuss on the next Top Shift or Lave Radio. What with Eve closing the walking round stations / captain’s cabin option and X-Rebirth’s walking around stations being regarded as a tedious chore, Would people be happy with the starting point being just a bar being available in stations where Commander avatars can walk in and socialise? Heck they could even 'Holo' in (Right I'll duck and cover!!)

This is pure speculation about what this functionality would be required to make this happen;-

1. First person view only – No third person view.
2. No avatar to avatar combat (yet).
3. You can only disembark from your ship within the hanger and walk around your ship and walk to the lift and back.
4. Once at the Lift, you have one option - The Bar! (This would probably be expanded on in the future to a Mall or park)
5. The lift will take you to the corridor outside the bar and you can walk in (For immersion’s sake, Frontier can say that it’s only the approved offworld area for the moment to reduce the chance of a Cmdr. bringing in new bugs or viruses).
6. Here is a large room with a couple of serving counters, plenty of standing tables and sit down alcoves at.
7. Cmdrs. will need more than just the chat window to communicate with; they’ll need Emotes and actions to perform (i.e. the Legendary PsykoKow Pirate Dance will have to be replicated) Maybe some way to make to avatars interact (Fist bump, Shake Hands, Kiss, Punch, Throw a mug!) with each other.
8. Obviously Cmdrs. will have to be able to buy drinks (For immersion sake, you could have it so you can’t fly your ship if your avatar is drunk).
9. To make it feel less of a ‘just a glorified chatroom’, there are various Terminals dotted round the bar, replicating the main station screens (I.e. Marketplace, Missions, Etc)
10. Contacts can be represented by actual NPCs sat around the Bar (Black Market) or Behind Desks.
11. In order to encourage cmdrs to visit the bar; there are various terminals or contacts that are not available from the main station screen. Those could be;
    • A Bounty hunter board, where cmdrs can set bounties on other players.
    • Wing Board – where cmdrs can off their services as a wingman or look for other people to wing up.
    • Material Exchange – a player market where players can buy and sell synthesis materials and data with other players.
    • In-game link to the CQC Arena. Both playing games and spectating them ;-)

If we consider this kind of stuff it might explain to people why we’re probably not getting Space legs in season three. If I put my dev hat on, looking at this list, we’re probably talking at least a year of an experienced dev team’s time in order to create this kind of functionality. You’ve also got to factor in that the FPS engine will have to be expanded on in the future, which means that there will be a lot of infrastructure would need to be built in that we would never see as players at the start and the thought of how complex linking the FPS and Space parts of the game would probably give me a case of the screaming Heebie Jeebies. Now I might be completely off track with these estimates because I don’t know the capabilities of the COBRA engine and the Frontier Dev Team I would consider to be far above the average (Not meaning to Brown-nose but …).

So TL : DR, It's going to be a lot of work to put Elite Feet (Space Legs) in.

Do you think it’s worth Frontier spending that so much time putting what is effectively a new game within Elite Dangerous?

Would you prefer them to improve the space game features first?

Are there any ideas that you thought works in Star Citizen, Eve or X-Rebirth you think that E : D should take notice of?

 

[Shanaeri]

You also need to add VR support with the ability to use touch/vive controllers. Along with that some way of walking about without incurring motion sickness.

 

[who?]

You also need to add VR support with the ability to use touch/vive controllers. Along with that some way of walking about without incurring motion sickness.

Space Segways!

 

[UselessThing]

I'd be happy with just being able to walk on alien planets and plant a flag.

So no new assets, no animation beyond walking.

Although even then animation for walking in a variety of gravities would probably be needed.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Just make all VR users wheelchair bound, that will solve the sickness issue

I want to be able to EVA into derelicts with a welding torch and salvage stuff, etc

Some of the stuff you see Star Citizen doing, even if not to the same level of fidelity and depth.. initially


Edit: I would prefer for them to implement space legs sooner rather than later so that the game will be developed with space legs in mind... At the moment the game is designed wothout the consideration for space legs and is getting more so by the day. Requiring more and more rethinks. When legs finally gets in

 

[DNA-Decay]

I think Star Citizen will fill the Elite Feet gap.

But
i would like to see inside my ship.
I would buy stupid things for my sleeping quarters.
I would be happy to play house in my ships for a while.

 

[Vorxian]

Yep even if fdev just started off as being in ship only.. there's so much that can be done to make immersive game play a lot less stiff.

Being able to walk around your ship, visit various 'rooms' of the ship.. smaller ships would probably be more like a small fishing boat.. an upper deck / lower deck with engine room.. bigger ships well could be any size up to super yacht with all sorts of things. Ultimately being able to repair systems from within your ship to repairing hull breeches from either inside if reachable, or space walking to fix no reachable breeches.. then you have planet exploration on foot, loads of options there around surveying and analysis..

So a lot they could do. Would rock with multiplayer / proper multicrew. Possibilities are quite endless given a set of functions to do (bit like Pulsar Lost Colony).

Stations can come later.. but the key is to get legs in, with a working 1st person system.

 

[Andovar]

Do you think it’s worth Frontier spending that so much time putting what is effectively a new game within Elite Dangerous?

Not at this time.

Would you prefer them to improve the space game features first?

Yes.


I think you've already outlined why this shouldn't be just another slapped on feature. It would be a complete mess.
I'm extremely happy with the recent announcement about going back and fixing and fleshing out core mechanics. It's long overdue.
Honestly, space legs should be a couple years away at best.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I'm not all that interested in first-person combat, or walking around my ship - I want to set foot on alien worlds and interact with things too small to cargo-scoop, too mechanical to operate with a scanner, or too delicate for a machine. Not to say I wouldn't walk around my ship, or a station, or even draw a weapon on someone. Given the option, I'd rather fire a huge burst of plasma from my ship on someone plinking at me with a hand-held weapon - even a whole lot of someones plinking at my ship.

 

[nathanc213]

I agree with vorxian in that i think that FD should just add in a basic form of space legs which limits us to our ships.

However i would just say limit it to walking around and maybe having a few interactive features in the ship but not implemening things like repairing the ship itself.

This way we would have the basics of space legs which will be at the point that they can easily be expanded upon when the time comes

 

[Sir.Tj]

Been discussing this with various people today funnily enough.

I did mention that the way you could activate VR in Alien Isolation which is very much in the 1st perspective. It works but does take a bit of getting used to. However once your tolerance is better it's well worth it and the standard WASD or Controller is easy enough to use. the only stumbling block perhaps would be Zero Gravity and how that would affect your equilibrium.

Frontier will be concentrating on core gameplay soon and I'd say that Eleet-feet is still a way off at the moment.

If it does arrive I'll be looking forward to exploring the ship and getting out and about on planetside and

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

I did mention that the way you could activate VR in Alien Isolation which is very much in the 1st perspective. It works but does take a bit of getting used to. However once your tolerance is better it's well worth it and the standard WASD or Controller is easy enough to use. the only stumbling block perhaps would be Zero Gravity and how that would affect your equilibrium.

That's why I decided to set it on stations. So there should be Gravity or if the worst came to the worst Mag Boots.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

If we are to have elite feet, I would want the whole package done at one time. My worry would be once the basics are in, it would not be be expanded on for some time. So it has to be all or nothing in my eyes. Also core gameplay first before anything else comes in apart from maybe more landable planets.

 

[GW42]

If it does arrive I'll be looking forward to exploring the ship and getting out and about on planetside and

and? and what?! Is this just a devious plan to make sure you can't be blamed for anything that goes wrong once you're out of your ship?

On topic: Personally I don't see the attraction of space legs. That may be my lack of imagination, but X Rebirth is the classic example to me - it felt tacked on and was an annoyance to spend time going round a station to do something that could be done straight from a ship menu.

I have a vague memory that X Rebirth was patched to make much of the station stuff optional, though that was after my brief attempts to play it. If it's purely optional and mimicking similar functionality to what we have in ship menus, is it really worth huge amounts of dev time?

But going inside wrecks floating in space to salvage stuff for missions, boarding operations to capture enemy ships etc...? I can see potential but agree with others that core game is the thing to focus on now.

Assuming of course that FD don't just have entirely separate teams with non-transferable skills already working on both.

 

[Schlack]

Hmmm I wonder if the avatars will have adjustable styles of walking. I want my hideous creation to have a hip swinging sexy walk.

 

[Crank Larson]

Edit: I would prefer for them to implement space legs sooner rather than later so that the game will be developed with space legs in mind... At the moment the game is designed wothout the consideration for space legs and is getting more so by the day. Requiring more and more rethinks. When legs finally gets in

Space-legs should be the last feature added to this game. It is not what the game is about, fundamentally. And other than the initial excitement of walking about your ship, I think that being able to walk anywhere else will get old very quickly. I'm thinking NMS. You can walk around and do all sorts there, build bases, etc. But it isn't enough to keep me playing it, as the flight model is appalling. In E: D I want to spend at least 90% of my time flying a spaceship. Everything else is secondary.

 

[LJITimate]

great idea. what about all the people who give mission on the mission board are only in the bar and you have to find them by walling around. and then you'd need to go into the bar and it makes more sense when they have that mini chat box because nobody can chat to someone through a pinboard

 

[Cosmo]

I hate the 3rd person view with first-person simulation games, because it breaks immersion. In real-life we can't look at the world with a third person camera behind our back 24/7.

That's also what I hate about Star Citizen, cause you can instantly switch between first and third person which kills immersion.

The Camera Suite is fine to take cool pictures and videos. However, playing with a camera behind your character feels so game-y and unrealistic.

3rd person view also gives an unfair advantage due to the wider field of vision. Many first-person shooters don't have 3rd person view to mitigate it.

So I hope space legs in Elite Dangerous will only have 1st person view during gameplay. 3rd person only to make photos, videos or when controlling a ship and other vehicles.

 

[Sir.Tj]

and? and what?! Is this just a devious plan to make sure you can't be blamed for anything that goes wrong once you're out of your ship?

Mwhahahahah

But, I'd personally like to have it at some point, but and don't blame me (®™©) I seem to vaguely remember Sandro saying it's not being looked at at the moment or it might have been Atmospheric Landings or Gin Tonics in game.....

And a 100000% no to 3rd person.

 

[Crank Larson]

That's also what I hate about Star Citizen, cause you can instantly switch between first and third person which kills immersion.

But as you aren't forced to switch, surely that gives you control over your own immersion? Personally, I'd rather the user had the option to choose their view.